The Subtle Gift
by DizzyTigger87
Summary: Ally Jacob's is a normal girl, or so she thinks until she finds out she's a witch and begins Hogwarts. She finds a world still hurting from a war that ended 22 years before, and she may the last hope of a world drowning in it's pain.


_Starting School_

Ally was excited. It was her first day at her new school, and she stood waiting on the platform for the school train to arrive. As usual, her parents had insisted on her being early. No one else seemed to be here yet so she wandered around the station. Her step-father was sat on a bench and had found a discarded newspaper which he had picked up and began to read. Her mother was busy looking after her younger twin half-sisters and baby half-brother. Ally told herself she didn't mind. Once the train arrived, Ally's step-father helped her load up her trunk into a compartment at the end of the train. He apologised about not being able to wait to see her off but he had to go to work. Ally said she understood, and settled into her favourite pass time of people watching.

Everyone seemed to know each other, parents and children, and for the first time Ally felt nervous. She hadn't known she was a witch until a letter arrived through the post three weeks earlier, what if there had been a mistake? "Now stop it Ally, thinking like that won't get you anywhere! They wouldn't make mistakes; they know magic for heaven's sake". Ally calmed down a little and settled back to watching people arrive through the wall onto the platform.

A lady with blond hair and a man with red hair appeared, surrounded by four excited children, each with a trunk and owl apiece. The blond lady was obviously trying to keep some control over her children, especially the eldest boy.

"Fred, if I have to tell you once more to watch your words I will scourgify your mouth!" She admonished, before turning to her youngest daughter, "You ready Mel? If you need anything, just send an owl. I'm sure the others will keep an eye out for you." she added, glaring at her eldest son.

The father laughed, "Rebekah, Calm down. We all survived Hogwarts remember. Mel will be fine. Anyway, with Kathy and Oscar being prefects, I'm sure she'll survive."

Rebekah sighed, and started herding them towards the train. "Fred, behave yourself this term….I'm warning you." she called at her sons retreating back

"Ya, whatever mum!"

.

The train whistle blew, and students started piling onto the train in droves, waving goodbye to their families and promising to send owls once they arrived. The door of Ally's compartment slid open, and 3 people peered in. One was Mel, the girl from the station.

"Can we sit here?" the other girl asked.

"Yeah," Ally replied, "There's no one else about."

"Cool." the brown haired boy said with a smile, "I'm Hugo Weasley, and these are my cousins Mel and Lily."

"I'm Ally Jacobs." Ally replied.

Silence fell as the occupants studied each other. "So what house you want to be in Ally?" Mel asked, finally speaking.

"I don't know." Ally answered truthfully. "What house do you mean?"

The others laughed, but not unkindly. "At Hogwarts we're sorted into houses depending on what our personality traits are. Pretty much the whole family is Gryffindor with us, apart from Mel's sister Kathy, who's Ravenclaw."

Before Ally could reply, an extremely handsome black haired boy poked his head into the room, "Ah there you are Lily, and I see you're ok. Least you're not sat with a bloody Malfoy like Al did when he arrived." James paused looking straight at Ally, "Hi, You're not one of us are you?"

Ally blushed "What do you mean, not one of us?"

"I mean you're not one of my huge family, which is very positive in my books." James winked at her and withdrew from the compartment.

"Git." Lily muttered.

Ally looked at her, but it was Mel who explained.

"James is Lily's oldest brother, and thinks he's 'all that'. He's never forgiven Al; Lily's other brother, for making friends with Scorpius Malfoy."

Ally nodded, trying to fit everything together in her head. Before she could ask more questions, a red headed guy stuck his head round the door, "Good, I've found you all. You'd better put your robes on as we'll be at Hogwarts soon." he said pompously before withdrawing.

.

As the four started to pull on their robes, Mel explained that the guy was yet another cousin, son of her uncle Percy. "Dad says Percy was more pompous the Oscar but it's hard to believe. Oscar just does not have a sense of humour, and never has."

Lily and Hugo laughed along at this apt description of their elder cousin.

The discussion once again fell to Hogwarts, and Ally listened in eagerly wanting to learn as much as possible. She learnt that there were four houses and that at evening dinner you were expected to sit at house tables, but other meals were more relaxed and you could sit with friends from other houses. She leant that each house had a ghost (that right ghost!) and there were common rooms for the sole use of house members. Ally started to feel nervous. What if she ended up in Slytherin? The other three seemed to dislike that house in particular. Would she end up in the same house as her new found friends? She hoped so. All too soon, the train drew into the station at Hogsmede.

* * *

**A/N - If any of you are reading Kathy Potter, Daughter of a Marauder you will notice in later chapters how this is a sequal, or rather Kathy Potter is a Prequal as this has been written for ages now and is where I got the idea, the two stories can be read seperately as it will be a while before any information on Kathy comes to light here, and although Kathy's storyline will eventually be important in this story, Kathy Potter is a completely separate story (for the time being).**

**I own only that which you do not recognise.**


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